


What good shinobi do (they get petty)

by amako



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Blood and Violence, Dubious Morality, Gen, Mental Instability, Resentment, implied schizophrenia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-22 03:42:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13755573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amako/pseuds/amako
Summary: Sasuke is missing an arm, there is a shortage of staff at the hospital and the nail polish on her toenails is the wrong colour for the outfit Sakura is wearing that day.





	What good shinobi do (they get petty)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [open season](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6798397) by [sazzafraz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sazzafraz/pseuds/sazzafraz). 



> Title and plot idea inspired by [open season](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6798397) by sazzafraz

It's like this:

 

Sasuke is missing an arm, there is a shortage of staff at the hospital and the nail polish on her toenails is the wrong colour for the outfit Sakura is wearing that day.

The outfit consists of blue jōnin-issued pants and long-sleeved shirt, paired with shaking hands and the smell of dried sweat.

She feels very dramatic when every step she takes digs a small crater into the dusty street. If it weren't for the blood pumping in her throat and Inner yelling inside her mind, she would imagine herself conquering a country or five.

 

It's like this:

 

Sasuke is still missing an arm, and Tsunade just told her he demanded a replacement for Sakura. Naruto and him are still genin and they need a third member to pass the exams. Sakura obviously has no place in Team 7 anymore.

 

(actually, it's more like this:)

 

She just spent forty-eight hours in the hospital. The Academy organized a field trip and the twenty-two children fell into an ambush. Three died in combat. Two more on the trip back to the village. Sixteen ended up in intensive care. The last one died a step inside the hospital.

 

There is a shortage of staff at the hospital.

 

Ten children passed away under her hands.

 

The courier with Tsunade's message regarding Sasuke's request arrived as she finished severing the poisoned hand of a seven-year-old boy.

 

She leaves the hospital when she's certain the last six kids will make it. There is a bloodstain on her right cheek from when a girl vomited haemoglobin on her.

 

It's easy to track Sasuke down. The seals written all over his back as mean to keep tabs on him are familiar to her. She did help design them, after all. It felt like a petty revenge for all the hurt, at the time. Now she wishes she had carved them into his skin using a rusty screwdriver.

He's at training ground three, Naruto's presence lingering a few kilometres away. He's been practising on the water of training ground four, while Sasuke sticks to familiar surroundings. All the better for her.

He doesn't feel her coming. She has the finest chakra control in the world and if she wants to remain unseen, unseen she will be. It's simple enough to slip into the earth with a dōton jutsu and wraps her fingers around his ankle. A hard tug later and he's buried to the neck in mud and rocks.

Sakura towers over him, her eyes unseeing and head slightly tilted to the right.

 

“What the hell are you doing?” Sasuke snarls, his skin vibrating with lightning to help free himself.

 

Her sharp focus turns to him, the exhaustion and chakra loss sleeping from her bones as easy as breathing in. Her hands lock in a seal. She flashes bloody teeth at him, a twisted smile that she keeps in place as her Byakugō starts crawling under her skin. The thick, black lines run from her forehead to her cheeks, camouflaging the bloodstain before moving on to her neck.

The chakra burst is exhilarating and she revels in the power pumping through her glutton veins.

Sasuke is out of the ground a second later, watching her with a frown and confused eyes.

Sakura doesn't give him the luxury of a warning. She presses forward and, taking him by surprise, punches her way through his ribs.

 

There is no sound as deeply satisfying as hearing the bones explode into his torso.

 

He stumbles back, liquid coming up his throat and making his choke.

 

(she hopes it's blood)

 

Sakura can feel it build in her chest, like a bonfire growing stronger and stronger, fed by every hurt, every betrayal, every scornful word. She realizes how deep the feeling runs, how ugly it is, and she loves it.

 

Sasuke pressed his hand against his side a second after she landed the blow, and now he seems to understand that she is not joking in any manner.

She doesn't let him recover. Her next punch lands in the exact same spot as the first, but this time she grips his shoulder to keep him up, and waits until she can feel a shard of bone puncture his lung.

Sasuke fights to breathe and she crushes his knee with a precise kick. He falls with a grunt, and she lets him. A second later, she avoids a fire ball aimed at her head and watches him get up, one eye closed in pain while the other trails her movements. The sharingan red matches the blood staining his lips. It soothes something inside of her.

 

(not enough, though, never enough, because she is a greedy girl and this little boy robbed her of everything that once made her feel at home)

 

Not enough, so she runs to him and she carefully aims her hand to make it look like she's going to punch his ribs against. Sasuke angles his body just right to avoid the blow, and offers his jaw to her left fist.

He falls back and she uses his lost balance to break his second knee. This time, when he falls, he doesn't rise back. But Sakura doesn't care, because she has him, he's at her mercy, and she's _pissed._

 

Her Byakugō is pulsing, the chakra running freely to her fist when she calls it. It's enough to push her over the edge, and she strikes his chest. And she strikes again. And again.

He's yelling something at her, his eyes mad, but she doesn't look at him. She can only see the blood on her fists, on his chest, sipping through his clothes.

 

She sees the ten children dying under her hands.

 

She sees Neji in a hospital bed, holes pierced through his body.

 

She sees Shikamaru crying in a white corridor.

 

She sees Naruto, unconscious next to a waterfall.

 

She strikes again. She can feel Naruto's chakra approaching at top speed, so she strikes some more.

She just might be killing her teammate and the only thing she feels, underneath the fury and disgust, is a strangely quiet peace.

 

“SAKURA!”

 

He's a hundred metres from her. She smiles widely at Sasuke and meets his eyes.

 

“I hate you,” she whispers in his ear. “I hate you,” she says as she buries her fist in his guts and leaves it there. “I hate you,” she says as she kisses his forehead, before twisting her wrist and spreading her fingers, destroying his liver.

 

Naruto kneels at their side, frantic and shouting, knowing better than to move her when she could do so much more damage by taking her hand out.

 

“I hate you,” she says one last time as she removes her hand and strokes his cheek with her bloody fingers.

 

Inner is cackling in her head and Sakura feels like she finally settled a debt with herself.

 

When the ANBU come to restrain her, she's sitting crossed-legs against one of the three training poles. The blood is drying on her fingers when they wrap her hands together behind her back.

Tsunade is kneeling in the dirt, the glow of her hands casting green shadows on Sasuke's face. His head is turned to the side and he's watching her.

She smiles softly.

There is no sweeter knowledge than the awareness that she's the best medic in the world, and that she just proved to be the second best fighter in the village. (not the third, not anymore)

No sweeter knowledge, because they won't keep her locked up. They need her too much. And it means one, very simple thing.

 

She won.

 

 

 


End file.
